Signs of the Apocalypse-- Everything that is Mandatory is Forbidden

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This blog's Chaos editor, N. Tropee, reports that there is another interesting decision of the future that showed up in his email due to a computer worm that morphed into a worm in the space-time-internet continuum.

It has been said that in some societies everything that is not forbidden is mandatory, and everything that is not mandatory is forbidden. This case, Matter of Miner v. Bizzietown Police Department, is unique, in that it deals with something that is, at once, both mandatory and forbidden.

This case involves a lawsuit by a seventeen year old petitioner, Randy Miner, against the police Department of the Town of Bizeetown, who prohibited him from working at his place of employment.

Randy Miner was employed for the summer as an usher at the Bizeetown Uniplex-- a motion picture theater in a small town that has but one screen. The manager of the theater, Ziggy Feld, told Master Miner that he would have to lay him off while an NC-17 rated feature was being shown. The movie, Last Tango in the Pampas, deals with the forbidden love affair between a married conservative Southern governor and an Argentinian beauty, and is based upon a best selling novel which, obviously, was fiction.

Feld reluctantly took this action, he affirmed, because Sgt. Comstock of the Bizeetown police always attended NC-17 rated features, and would insist on removing anyone under the age of eighteen or he would prosecute the manager of the movie house. The rating "NC-17" means than no one under eighteen (i.e., seventeen and under) will be admitted, although the Motion Picture Association of America also notes "NC-17 does not mean “obscene” or “pornographic” in the common or legal meaning of those words, and should not be construed as a negative judgment in any sense."

Penal Law Section 235.21 prohibits disseminating indecent material to minors. The law prohibits someone"
"Knowing the character and content of a motion picture, show or
other presentation which, in whole or in part, depicts nudity, sexual
conduct or sado-masochistic abuse, and which is harmful to minors,...
(a) Exhibits such motion picture, show or other presentation to a
minor for a monetary consideration."

Minor sued, claiming that the police action violates his employment rights because it constitutes discrimination based upon age and sex. His first argument is (will be ?)
that he is old enough to drive, to not be in school, and to marry with parental consent, and yet he is forbidden to see a movie based upon a book that he has taken out of the Bizeetown library and read. With parental consent he could marry, and then engage in the very acts depicted on the screen, but the law forbids him from viewing others simulating them. The law forbids him from actually seeing on screen nudity, for example, which he could see in the mirror, his attorney, Jenny Talia, Esq. argued. He is, because of his age, not permitted to engage in his chosen "profession" or ushering.

The argument about discrimination based upon sex at first seemed far fetched. However, Miner argues through counsel that statues forbid discrimination "based upon sex" (New York Executive Law Section 296, and Title VII, Civil Rights Act of 1964). Talia urged that the statute be read (or misread) literally--and that Miner is being discriminated against "on the basis" of sex, because it is the sex depicted in the movie that has caused him to be discriminated against in his employment.

He argues that discrimination based upon sex is a "suspect category" under case law (Frontiero v. Richardson, 411U. S. 677 (1973). It is widely known, he argues, that the Bizzetown Police always suspect that others are having more sex than they are, particularly the suspects.

This ingenious argument caused the court to consider that what is forbidden is also mandatory. While one statute would forbid Miner to see nude individuals or view even simulated sex, sex education is mandated in our school system after the recent passage of legislation called the Healthy Teens Act, requiring it in schools. In other words, the very sexual conduct that is explained and illustrated in schools because of state law, is forbidden to be viewed by the same students in movie theaters.

The Town Attorney of Bizeetown, Ernest Warder, argued that the two are not necessarily in conflict. Sex education in school is supposed to be educational and certainly not entertaining, he pointed out. The purpose of an NC-17 rating is to prevent anyone who doesn't already possess some intimate knowledge (in several senses of that phrase) of the subject matter from being educated by watching it.

Miner's attorney countered that he already had a working knowledge of sex (he got an "A" in sex education and even completed an extra credit assignment about which the court declined to take evidence); and therefore should not have to stop working "on account of sex" being a subject of the movie. The court asked, rhetorically (?), what would happen if the sex education teacher took the students on a field trip to see and discuss the movie in question.

The petitioner subpoenaed the movie to court in order to show that it would not be contributing to his delinquency to watch it, but that gave the court an additional problem. Town Attorney Earnest Warder moved to exclude the petitioner from the viewing, but his attorney Jenny Talia said he had a constitutional right to be present during the presentation of evidence on his own behalf and as part of his case.

A ruling is expected soon according to the email.